Since relocating to Australia, compost has occupied a central position within Tamara Henderson’s practice: as material, method, and model of transformation. Through processes of decomposition and regeneration, Henderson constructs an ecology in which sculpture, painting, film and sound emerge through the same cycles of accumulation, decay and renewal.

‘The Gardener’s Bar’ developed from this environment as an ode to Henderson’s backyard Kamberri/Canberra shed. Neither sculpture nor architecture, it functions as a site of cultivation, production and exchange, holding the material residues, gestures and rhythms of Henderson’s practice. Reconfigured and expanded for this exhibition, ‘The Gardener’s Bar’ stands as an all-embracing artwork and an apothecary of Henderson’s material and aesthetic language, developed and produced at Canberra Glassworks.

The exhibition is accompanied by ‘The Gardener’s Bar Codex,’ a collection of newly commissioned texts by friends and collaborators spanning two decades of Henderson’s practice.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body, and supported by Canberra Glassworks, the ACT Government through artsACT and the Canada Council for the Arts.